[release] Hellsmash Beta 3

[Dr. Shadowborg]

[goldenboy]

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files ... ogs_gb.zip

I had a go at some logs I found in the map. They're only a test.

Downsampling to 11025 Hz (and conversion to 8 bit) proved problematic; it raises the noise level and kills the high end. The 11kHz version sounds like I'm lisping, because all the "s"es are suppressed.

I included the four wavs at 44, 22 and 11kHz so you can compare. Some of Quake's original sounds are left at 22 kHz; I suggest using that for the logs as well, because it sounds better.

Eventually, of course, different voices would be good. Recording these only took like 5 minutes with some primitive recording program. There was processing done afterwards, but I think the recording part can be done by anyone with a mic. Even a laptop mic or headset would suffice.

[Dr. Shadowborg]

[Sajt]

[goldenboy]

What can you do

I guess in an army of the future, soldiers can be Germans, Scots or whatever... and they would likely have an accent. They do today.

[Sajt]

[CocoT]

Aesome stuff, Dr. Shadowborg! I've been catching up with releases and trying things that have been released in the past... well... 2 years or so and this was obviously among the mods on the top of my list
Great models and great map! I love the combination of new weapons while retaining a nice Quake feel map-wise. Can't wait to see more of it!

[frag.machine]

[Wazat]

Oookay, finally forced myself to take the time to play some games, and I'm really pleased I installed and played this mod. This is exceptionally well done.

I love the shotgun. I personally feel it needs to be more powerful given the downtime it incurs after each shot (or perhaps the machinegun just overshadows it), but it still kicked ass. The kickback and reload sequence are just... glee!!!
I want. Please mail me this shotgun. I'm willing to pay full price plus shipping and handling, license fees, and whatever customs charges are necessary when transporting a weapon to reality from the video game world.

The machinegun is definitely more powerful than the shotgun, but damn is it a cool weapon! I love the mechanics of it, and the weapon *really* delivers in both effectiveness and just the feel of how it works.

The blaster (or whatever #1 is) was cool. This was a great staple weapon. I like how it fires twice when upgraded. It's cool picking up weapons from enemies and upgrading my own.

There are other weapons that didn't come up in single player, but I saw them once when I accidentally hit the 9 key. Looks like some cool stuff I'll have to try out in multiplayer!

I really liked the sounds in this game, aside from aida beeping at me. The fiend-like creatures that you meet in the reactor after shutting it down are very cool, and I had fun taking them on with the shotgun! Hearing them screech was cool and eerie.

Lava scrags! Dual-chainsaw ogres!

Dynamite was fun. I learned the hard way that it also has a timer. Dropping them at my feet as a trap for later and suddenly BOOM! Guess how I took out the lava scrags in the reactor room, and the fiends at the elevator. I love having an alt-fire trigger to set them all off. Wee!

Enemy weapons are insanely awesome. I had trouble often with the machinegunners, as they had me nearly dead before I even realized they were there. However, I loved the challenge. And I loved the sheer variety of enemies and attacks I had to go up against. An enemy would lob a grenade at me and then follow up with a shotgun as I rushed forward to escape it. Homing missiles, ceiling turrets, and plasma rifles, oh my!

That's definitely how to do monsters. I really enjoyed fighting them and seeing their attacks.

The map was, in my opinion, very professionally made. As mentioned there's a lot of confusion about where to go etc (perhaps a message in the triggers would do), but visually it's excellently crafted. Button locations on elevators are a bit odd, but that's okay. I really like the underground military/science base theme, especially when it's so well pulled off. There's a lot of attention to detail that really makes the single player experience that much better -- for example, crawling through the ventilation shaft, I look down and see where the cover has fallen and landed on the floor below. Dead players dot various parts of the maps, reminding me of how screwed I am next time I round a corner to find a red enforcer or ogre. Textures and details are well-placed and the map is extremely visually appealing and well structured. I said that already, but it's worth saying twice. There wasn't a bland spot in the entire map that made me think "huh, this needs something to break it up or make it look right." You are an excellent mapper and moder!

Well done Dr. Shadowborg. I have yet to play against frikbots (ugh, have to work tomorrow, long day, need to be arguably coherent... need....sleep...), but I look forward to playing this later when I have time again.

It's not often I get to enjoy such a well-made single player mod!

[Sajt]

[goldenboy]

[Sajt]

[Dr. Shadowborg]

[Wazat]

Nooo! Don't replace the dual-chainsaw ogre! He's awesome!

Keep him around. He was a cool boss.

On skill levels:

A very simple way to make the higher skills harder (and easy mode easier) is to scale player & monster damage in the glorious bottleneck that is T_Damage. You can scale player vs monster damage and monster vs player damage based on the skill variable, using Normal skill as the baseline. Hard might be a player_dmg/1.2 and monster_dmg*1.2. Nightmare might be as high as 1.35 or even 1.5, but not too high because other things will change with skill too! Easy mode can be 0.85 perhaps, if that.

I know that this should not be the only thing that skill changes. I like that you'll also be mixing it up with new monster behaviors (perhaps leading their aim, faster response times upon sighting the player, faster movement & attack speed, firing two grenades/shotgun shots instead of 1, maybe dodging shots, etc). Even little 1-2 changes along this line will help to make nightmare skill more than just firing more shots per monster.

Also increasing/decreasing ammo box contents per skill level may be appropriate, though it could also be hard to fine-tune.

[Sajt]

Make the nightmare teleporter harder to find! Also... the player selection room should show the player models... it would be cool if they were sort of "trapped" in the wall behind the teleport or something, Dungeon Master style. Or not.